Dear Diary…
Two words that are synonymous with a safe space to unload your most private thoughts and feelings, the ability to write down things you’d likely never willingly share with a stranger or sometimes even a friend. Reading another person’s diary would be typically viewed as a complete invasion of privacy, as shameful. So why is this shame not evoked when reading published diaries?
Perhaps the most renowned published diary would be The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Written when Anne was just 13, her diary is both historically significant in it providing us with a testimony of what it was like to be in hiding during Nazi rule and contains deeply relatable descriptions of being a teenage girl, having crushes, angst towards parental figures, and feeling misunderstood by those around you. Anne edited and re-wrote parts of the diary which could be argued to show she had an intent to publish either the diary or a text describing her life in the annex.
Additionally, when it was published post-humously, her dad excluded certain chapters including details he felt were too private. However, there is a level of controversy here, Anne was 13 when she wrote her diary, and no one can say for sure that as an adult she would have wanted it to be published. Although as her guardian, her father did have that authority, even pieces of the text he wanted kept private eventually were also made public. But it has also been extremely significant in understanding a small part of what life was like in hiding under Nazi occupation.
The publication of Anne Frank’s diary is perhaps unique in circumstance as it could not be said that all published diaries hold the same historical importance and capacity to be defended.
Joan Didion’s Notes to John is what to me comes to mind when I think of controversy regarding publishing diaries posthumously and the invasive nature of having these openly available to the public. The book is a collation of notes that she wrote during her time in therapy, specifically on her struggles with her daughter’s alcoholism and mental health. The notes are largely unedited and were found and subsequently published after Didion’s death. The book is not at all fictional, it is not a fascinating peek behind the curtain into Didion’s private life but rather a blatant invasion into her and her family’s privacy.
With so much literature out there being intended for us, do we really need to go so far behind the curtain?
Photo by Nicolas Messifet on Unsplash
